Profile of Sam Stowe

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

This collection of the Times‘ news coverage during the war is a must-have for Civil War enthusiasts and other American history buffs. It contains the power to astonish modern readers with its lofty rhetoric, constant editorializing in news stories and decisions on what was important to its audience. Those decisions are, in many cases, not what a modern newspaper would choose.

J. North Conway’s new account of the law enforcement career of Thomas Byrnes, The Big Policeman, shows us what it took to bring some degree of order and safety to New York City’s streets in the Gilded Age. And he’s scrupulously fair to Byrnes, whose bare-knuckled approach to his job would never be acceptable to most modern Americans. He was a man of his age and, somewhat ironically, a cop who would introduce many of the basic techniques that almost all current law enforcement agencies still use.

Weequahic has been particularly hard-hit by the summer’s polio epidemic. Bucky, stuck supervising his school playground’s summer programs for kids, is forced to watch in horror as his students randomly sicken and die.

Bernard Cornwell, who has written a masterful novel about Agincourt, tackles the American Revolution and its realities in his new work, The Fort. You won’t find any shellacked heroes here. His patriots range from the committed few to the mercenary many and include a host of men who have been shanghaied (“Impressed” was the term of the day) into serving their country involuntarily.

Saramago’s ability to wring delightful dialogue out of his characters will charm just about anybody. The compassion and love for a flawed humanity he brings to his work is much too rare in a literary world and broader society that seem to devalue these qualities at a time when they are desperately needed.

Americans would be well advised to learn about Iran’s culture and tragic recent history before our nations resort to a regional war. If you read one book about Iran to fill in your lack of knowledge, make sure it is this one.

With the exceptions of several of his earlier works, every time I take on a book by William T. Vollmann the same thought always wanders through my head about 100 to 150 pages into the narrative, “Why in the hell am I reading this.

The genius of the Irish who emigrated to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries was to fuse both political clout and criminal enterprise into vast, urban political machines that helped uplift the Irish and create a place for them at the table of American bounty.

Since our society began its retreat into Social Darwinism tricked out in the guise of laissez-faire economics, those of us who enjoy our economic history red in tooth and claw have the guilty pleasure of reading about business scandals.